Taking a break from cleaning to ramble about random things

My pet gargoyle guarding my books and candles and
wearing a good luck necklace I made out of peyote
beads, felt, leather, and aventurine.

The Academic Year is starting. We change rooms every semester at my college, so I've spent most of this week moving into my new room. Friday we'll have an inspection, but after that I can personalize things about it a little more. I have two roommates this semester, so the practice part of my religious preferences is going to have to be extra low key, since neither is very comfortable with it (both expressed the desire that I tell them before I'm about to do any bubbly cauldron stuff, so that they can leave me in peace...of course, I don't actually have a cauldron, so that won't be an issue). However, they don't object to my book collection or my candles. They are pretty, after all, plus they smell nice. I'm a huge fan of scented votives.

We also have a hot pink rug in the center of our floor, as well as a fridge and a table and a tiny bamboo plant, which despite my careful attention is already starting to die on me. I'm not very good at taking care of plants, so perhaps my dabblings in herbalism will continue to be limited to what I can buy from a store, at least until I develop some sort of green thumb. As of right now, both my thumbs are rather anti-green. There's also an adorable stone gargoyle sitting on my desk, which was a gift from a friend who graduated this summer. He had stumbled across it one day, abandoned in a trunk room on campus, and kept it in his room. However, since he's graduated and is now moving to Alabama, he didn't want to ship it down there. Knowing that I would give the gargoyle (named Gregory) a good home, he gifted him to me. I'm planning on giving Greg a good smudging and blessing so he can be a protector. The friend who gave him to me had many protective qualities as well, so turning his gift into a guardian feels right.

I need to get back to working on my room, especially if I want to fit in a work out this afternoon. Regretfully, I've been neglecting the physical side of my wellness for the past few weeks and not hitting the gym or the road nearly as often as I normally like to. Zumba classes start up again in September, so that will help, and one of my roommates & I are planning on running the Diva Race in October and the Disney Marathon in January, so that's some added motivation to get back in shape right there! I've run one marathon before, and it absolutely killed me because I didn't train enough beforehand. I finished, and I finished in about the time I expected, but it put me out of commission for a few weeks, and me knees haven't been the same since, so I'm hoping to follow a better training regimen this time and save my joints. I'm too young to wake up in this much pain every day!